


Of Eyelashes and Plaid Shirts

by synonym



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Banter, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 06:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9871370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synonym/pseuds/synonym
Summary: Norma finds a scar near his eye, one early morning while watching him sleep.





	

‘What happened right here?’ She asks suddenly. She had been watching him sleep for the last thirty minutes, tracing the details of his face; his thin, defined cheekbones, the stubble that trailed along the lines of his jaw, the arch of his nose, the rough angles of his dark eyebrows. She loves his face, always had. There was something distinctly unique about the way he looks, like a work of art that couldn’t be replicated. She always found most people had generic facial features, like carbon copies, sure they looked decent, boring, but decent. She had spent her life around generic and predictable. It had been part of a problem she couldn’t stop finding, like Sam who had been countlessly predictable in his violence. Outwardly, he had looked like one of those decent, boring people. A faceless man in a sea of familiarities. Alex showed he was the opposite of that in every single way, and so staring into the face of such a unique looking man gave her a warmth in the pit of her stomach that went beyond the physical aesthetic of his features.

She had been making her way to the indents of his eyes when she had stopped at a small scar just below his right eye, near the outer edge. Granted, the man had a lot of scars and considering his line of work it was to be expected. It looked strange somehow, it stood out to her with its small hook in the shape of it, like something would have had occurred with precision.

‘Hmm..?’ He hears her voice, his eyes flutter slightly at the question but she can tell he is still half asleep. She smiles because he has a habit that makes her heart pick up, which was simply that he came when he was called, he protected her whenever she reached out, even most of the times when she didn’t reach out, he found his way to her in some fashion, as if by some inexplicable connection of their minds. He just tended to know when she needed him, even when she was unaware of it herself.

‘This scar right,’ She touches him with more pressure because he is very asleep, and she needs him to be very awake and very focused on her, ‘Here.’

His eyes flutter open and the light reflects off the warm, brown colour. As soon as he analyzes her face, a soft smile melts into his lips and his eyes. She loves everything about it, about him, and that is as terrifying as it is wonderful.

‘It’s,’ He starts, but a sudden bashfulness takes over his features as he averts his eyes and places the tips of her fingers on his lips, ‘It’s stupid, really. I promise you it is nothing heroic, Norma.’’

‘Well, I want to know.’

There is a flash of embarrassment and she very much needs to know everything there is about this man. In the back of her mind, she reminds herself at a later date to ask about every single scar that lay on his body. He is so different, he has this soft part of himself she has never seen in a man before, or at least ever been privy to, and she doesn’t want to share him with anyone else. She would probably destroy any woman that ever tried to take him from her, as illogical and nonsensical as that was, as he was as taken with her as she was with him, but she had never had someone in her world that was this selfless, this incredible.

‘When I was in high school, there were kids that used to pick on me because they thought I wore makeup. Eyeliner, specifically, because of my eyelashes and I got so fed up with it that one day after school, I took scissors to them and tried to cut them all off,’ He closes his eyes and intertwines his fingers with hers, ‘I was standing in the bathroom trying to cut and pull them out and my father came home and on his way in he slammed the door so hard it made me jump out of my skin. I ended up almost poking my eye, just barely missing my pupil, and slicing open the skin just below it.’

‘I like them,’ 

‘Like what?’ 

She shoves his chest slightly, and his eyes open once more, playfully dancing in the morning light. Her thumb brushes against the bottom lashes and she is surprised when he lets her without shutting them instinctively, ‘I can’t believe you, Alexander Romero, would fall prey to such a basic human need to fit in.’

‘I was fifteen and there was a girl,’

‘It’s always a girl isn’t it?’ She is smiling, with her hand travelling down his chest. He is more awake now the warmth of his eyes and mouth spreading to his touch, his hands lightly tracing her figure, and she wishes she could live in this moment for at least a good decade. 

‘It tends to be,’ He says and presses his lips to her neck, briefly, and then her collarbone before pulling away. She wants him back against her, she likes when she knows he is thinking entirely of her, and she likes the way he becomes entranced with her. In retrospect, she is suffers from a similar affliction, but it is too much to tell him as much, ‘You didn’t answer my question,’

‘I like your eyelashes,’ She says quietly and she finds herself staring at his chest instead of his face, ‘It makes you, well, you, Alex.’

‘Norma,’

‘I can’t believe you tried to cut them off,’ She interjects, and kisses both of his eyelids. His hands pull her on top of him, and she laughs, her mouth still hovering near the bridge of his nose, ‘Is this your true tragic backstory? The tale of the girly eyelashes? The masculinity complex of eye hair?’

‘You got me- It is the bane of my existence, forget classic childhood woes,’ He deadpans, ‘My real psychological motivation is the overcompensation of my womanly eyelashes.’

She laughs again, her fingers tracing his lips as she curled herself against the top of his body, ‘Whatever it was, eyelashes or not, I’m glad you are you. Physically, mentally, you are just… I’m glad.’

It comes out more emotional than she wants but when his face lights up, that sleepy contented grin, completely unguarded and boyish, she can’t find it in herself to care.

‘Does this mean we can discuss your psychological desire to hide and wear all of my plaid shirts? Don’t get me wrong, it’s utterly attractive, I’m just running out of shirts to wear on my days off.’

She rolls off of him and shoves him over to his side of the bed, trying to hide her smile, ‘For the last time, I don’t steal your shirts. You just misplace them.’

‘You’re wearing one right now,’

‘That is neither here nor there and just for that, I’m showering by myself.’

She walks to the bathroom and waits for him to follow. She loves the way he rises to her challenge, like he knows, and he does, that she is looking for him to push back. He is tied to her and she doesn’t remember if she has ever been this happy. He is in the doorway, the details of his eyes highlighted by the artificial light, and she feels like she is home.


End file.
